A Message for Fallujah

WSJ.comOpinion Journal ^ | April 1, 2004 | Peggy Noonan

[ride the whirlwind]

The world is used to bad news and always has been, but now and then there occurs something so brutal, so outside the normal limits of what used to be called man's inhumanity to man, that you have to look away. Then you force yourself to look and see and only one thought is possible: This must stop now. You wonder, how can we do it? And your mind says, immediately: Whatever it takes.

[lentulusgracchus]

Well, the porcine prescription would be appropriate for Al-Q'aeda religious nuts, but I think the gesture would be lost on Billy Ba'athist and merely offend general Iraqi opinion to no good effect.

Just settle his hash with flying lead -- or with personal service, delivered at arm's length.

[guitfiddlist]

It would be good not only for elemental justice but for Iraq and its future if a large force of coalition troops led by U.S. Marines would go into Fallujah, find the young men, arrest them or kill them, and, to make sure the point isn't lost on them, blow up the bridge.

Wow, Peggy. Dead on. Don't let it ever be said that women are lily-livered appeasers - just the cowardly 'Rat soccer sluts that dominate the partisan media.

[BunnySlippers]

Bingo!

[lentulusgracchus]

Remember the Fourth Punic War.

There wasn't a Fourth Punic War. Because after the third one, there wasn't anything left.

[varon]

Don't know about you all, but I'm about one more 9-11-01/Falluja away from getting my own personal payback.

An aye for an eye, hmmm?

[lentulusgracchus]

Let's play their game. Set a nice trap.

Now there's a thought. As part of a larger plan, I think it's worth adding into the mix.......give the Air Force a piece, give Mr. Spooky something useful to do.

[Peter J. Huss]

Remember the Fourth Punic War. There wasn't a Fourth Punic War. Because after the third one, there wasn't anything left. The Third Punic War: The Romans, deeply suspicious of a reviving Carthage, demanded that the Carthaginians abandon their city and move inland into North Africa. The Carthaginians, who were a commercial people that depended on sea trade, refused. The Roman Senate declared war, and Rome attacked the city itself. After a seige, the Romans stormed the town and the army went from house to house slaughtering the inhabitants in what is perhaps the greatest systematic execution of non-combatants before World War II. Carthaginians who weren't killed were sold into slavery. The harbor and the city was demolished, and all the surrounding countryside was sown with salt in order to render it uninhabitable.

[lentulusgracchus]

Brit Hume said yesterday that Arab journalists were taking the footage and passing it on to our outlets.

Well, for their honesty, and for the people who shuttered their windows and wouldn't let their kids look at what the Ba'athists were doing, I suppose we owe them the same chance God gave Lot.

But as for the rest of them.......

Mene, mene, tekel upharsin.

[lentulusgracchus]

Yes, and later -- considerably later, about three or four generations later, the area was resettled with Italian colonists who Romanized it, which was why the province of Africa figured in the Roman Revolution.

[sargunner]

Cannot argue with your logic. I suggest letting the Marines do what they do best. Among that list of attributes is NOT asking the enemy to play nice. It becomes a learned response. Anything short of that I consider dereliction of duty by our chain of command all the way to the top. If that approach fails I am all for a heavy metal response.

[beachn4fun]

We know what the men and boys who did the atrocity of Fallujah look like; they posed for the cameras. We know exactly what they did--again, the cameras. We know they massed on a bridge and raised their guns triumphantly. It's all there on film. It would be good not only for elemental justice but for Iraq and its future if a large force of coalition troops led by U.S. Marines would go into Fallujah, find the young men, arrest them or kill them, and, to make sure the point isn't lost on them, blow up the bridge.

OH YES! All I want to hear or see this day, is the not so sad news that many of those responsible were found dead in an "unfortunate accident" such as a car bombing that somehow back-fired on them......But, somehow we must make sure the message to the trouble-makers is to understand that the consequences of your actions against the coalition forces will be meet swiftly and justly.

[Peter J. Huss]

I did some more reading on this war.

The sowing of salt likely did not happen.

The city had 700,000 people before the battle. 10 days later, only 50,000 were alive - to be sold into slavery.

The city was then looted and burned.

[Wolfhound777]

The fact that we haven't taken an immediate action makes me hopeful that we're winding up the forces for some major payback.

Unfortunately, the reality is that we won't do anything in response. We just continue on with what we are doing now.

[NYKbyD]

Ye have little faith.

What comes to mind is the scene in Pulp Fiction where Samual L. quotes a verse from Ezekiel before he starts popping caps.

[FreedomPoster]

Exactly.

The Iraqis of Fallujah need to ponder that.

[ChadGore]

A Message for Fallujah

Bomb us next.

[Two Thirds Vote Aye]

I've been posting this photo variously over the past couple of weeks. It goes very well with your VERY well-spoken post.

[Alberta's Child]

If you really want to get outraged and cynical, consider this:

Half the people in that photo will be driving cabs in New York City within the next five years.

[Skooz]

If we had this attitude during World War 2, we would have never won the war. James Doolittle would have bankrupt us after we paid all the claims to the Japanese.

And Curtis LeMay would have been a one man budget deficit.